Salaries In Job Postings Could Become Required In NJ

NEW JERSEY — When it comes to wages, New Jersey employers could lose the ability to keep their cards close to their chests. State lawmakers may soon consider legislation that would require a salary range in most job postings.

Jersey City, New York City and Connecticut have passed similar regulations. One bill in the State Assembly would require employers with at least 10 workers to include certain information in job listings, such as minimum and maximum payment and available benefits and retirement plans.

The bill lingered within the Assembly Labor Committee for six months without a vote. But lawmakers may soon consider the wage-transparency measure, Assembly Member Paul Moriarty (D-4) told NJ 101.5.

"Maybe they’re (job seekers are) gonna just focus their job search in New York and Connecticut," Moriarty told the radio station, "which puts New Jersey at a competitive disadvantage in a very tight labor market."

Roughly 12 percent of online job postings in the U.S. include salary ranges, according to CNN Business. Withholding the information from the public means that competitors and current employees can't see what others might make and helps keep labor costs down.

But supporters of salary transparency say that publishing pay ranges would help job seekers understand the market rate for certain positions and focus their time on listings that match the compensation they seek. They could also close wage gaps, according to proponents for such laws.

Wage transparency can also benefit employers, according to Zoe Cullen, assistant professor of economics at Harvard University.

"Firms that firmly set a price for a particular job," Cullen told CNN Business, "have a high degree of bargaining power in the sense that they are announcing to potential job candidates that, 'if you try to negotiate anything higher than this price, it is going to affect everybody else because I will have to publicly adjust the going rate for this job.'"

Many states, including New Jersey, prohibit employers from screening applicants for or asking them about salary history. Gov. Phil Murphy prohibited the practice in his first executive order in February 2018. Similar legislation became state law in July 2019 and took effect Jan. 1, 2020.

Few states have laws that require employers to disclose a salary range — either on listings or after requests — but such regulations have gained momentum in the tri-state area. Connecticut's salary-transparency law took effect in October 2021, requiring employers to upon a candidate's request. As of November, New York City and Westchester County, New York, employers must reveal pay ranges in job advertisements.

The New Jersey bill applies to all employers seeking applicants within the state, besides those with fewer than 10 employees. That includes listings for temporary work, including internships. If passed, any employer violating the law would pay $1,000 for the first violation, $5,000 for the second and $10,000 for each ensuing infraction.